The Gift
by h0use-m0use
Summary: The crew of the Destiny spend their first Christmas away from home, and Doctor Rush is perhaps having the most difficult time of all. RushYoung friendship and/or PreSlash, depending on your preference.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Stargate. This is a fan based story only.

**Warning:** Mild language.

**Summary: **The crew of the Destiny spends their first Christmas away from home. Doctor Rush is perhaps the most affected of them all until he finds a kindred spirit in Colonel Young. RushYoung friendship and/or pre-Slash, depending on your preference.

**A/N:** I was writing this story about a week before Christmas, and then life built up and I couldn't finish it on time. I spent the last few days in New York, where I finally wrapped it up. So, hopefully you can still enjoy it now that we're 2011. I'm also very disappointed and angry that they canceled SGU. They canceled Atlantis so that SGU would have all the focus, and now that I'm completely mesmerized by the show, they want to get rid of it. And it will likely end on a cliffhanger, because they canceled it after they completed season two. The actors found out on twitter! No word yet on Carlyle and Ferreira's reactions. As devoted fans we can only hope that we'll be at least given a movie for final closure, as they did with Firefly. Worst x-mas gift ever, MGM.

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**The Gift**

A single, flimsy wreath. That was all Destiny harboured of a naïve human tradition created millions of years after its launch. It was elliptical, its branches tied together obviously with spare white string. Its foliage was pine-like with long, soft needles. It hung on a bulkhead by the bar in the mess hall, silently dying.

On it dangled a few mismatched ornaments; an earring, a shoelace tied in a bow, and something that looked like a snowman welded together from spare metal parts. No lights. They didn't have any to spare.

It was an ugly wreath. But every person who walked in glanced its way, soaking in whatever joy it offered. Everyone except Doctor Rush, who sauntered in at random times of day and night for the putrid porridge that promised him enough energy to continue his important work.

The night Scott's team had returned from the last planet with supplies and alien pine branches, a small group of civilians gathered together for a late supper and discussed important things in true holiday spirit:

"Rush is worse than Scroodge," one of them said.

Rush looked up instinctively when he heard his name. Until then he'd completely ignored the trio. It was late, and dim, and he was sitting in a dark corner nursing his notepad.

"I can't imagine anyone wanting to spend Christmas with that man," said a sickened female voice. "He's detestable at the best of times. And it's not like any of us help it along, he does it to himself!"

"It's his holier than thou attitude. Thinks he's better than all of us." The man's voice became sullen and he drank deeply. "My kids are spending their first Christmas without their dad, and they don't even know why. Fuckin' bastard." He slammed his cup into the table.

"I'm sure if you explained the situation to Colonel Young he'd…"

"Stones are off limits Christmas eve and day," said the third party. "It's fairer that way."

"He'll probably keep them for himself."

"For what…I heard his wife wants a divorce. Can't blame her, he's almost as bad as Rush."

"Well at least Young can be nice. Doctor does-it-all doesn't know that word exists."

"Maybe his head isn't screwed on just right." They paused as the other two mulled over the third's words. "How the Grinch stole Christmas," the man clarified in an obvious tone.

Rush could feel the woman rolling her eyes in agreement as she chugged down her drink. "Ain't that the damn truth? But instead of Christmas, he stole our lives." She laughed in disbelief. "I mean the only reason anyone puts up with him is because he knows ancient technology the best."

"His most successful relationship ever is probably the one he has with this ship."

They laughed. A cold and dirty noise.

"If you ask me it's sorta creepy. Sometimes, when I walk into the control room he's talking to the console. He treats this piece of junk better than us."

Rush couldn't remember what they said after that. He stayed long after they had picked up and left, until the early birds began creeping in for breakfast. His notepad was on its final page, but hours hadn't filled it.

Destiny's crew adorned the wreath in the days that followed. Every time Rush walked into the mess a new ornament hung from its weak branches. Some had been anonymous gifts, while others had been anointed by a public performance followed by clapping and whistles. Anything for morale, Rush guessed. Watching his comrade's desperation repelled him further from the festivities than Destiny was from Earth. Their last mission had been to a sweltering jungle planet for Christ sakes. Nothing screams Christmas louder than 100% humidity followed by monsoons and giant leeches.

Five days before Christmas Eli goaded Rush into participate in the hanging of his decoration. The lone scientist had already been in the mess hall, or Eli wouldn't have bothered trying. Rush hadn't given anything more than a turn of his head and an acerbic comment: "I really don't see the point in feeding a growing inevitable disappointment. We're billions of light years from Earth, do you really think the crew won't start to realize that, and once they do their morale will plummet and we'll be worse off than we were before. Best thing to do would be to forget about this silly, insignificant tradition."

Chloe and Scott, math boy's accompanying minions, had turned their dirty looks on him, but it was Eli that released the rope of the guillotine. "C'mon, Rush, don't be such a Grinch."

Rush scoffed like he was unaffected. He closed his eyes but as he shook his head an image of Gloria smiling so beautifully, her eyes twinkling brighter than the lights of the tree as she accepted his gift, swam in his vision.

Rush plainly avoided the mess hall after that. Inevitably, he was forced to return at least twice a day for food and water, and without fail someone was always talking about_ it_. He absurdly felt like whenever he walked into the room everyone discarded their previous conversations in favour of nostalgic seasonal anecdotes; like they were purposefully driving their wooden happiness and garlic smiles into his heart. As if he hadn't any of his own fond memories to share.

He played his role of Grinch faithfully, never missing an opportunity to spear a merry soul with his spiritless stare. It was what everyone expected of him by now. He couldn't simply plunk down on the bench and start reminiscing his best years with Gloria. How she had amazed him, and how much he really loved snow but Glasgow didn't get as much as he would have liked. People would talk.

The scientists avoided their grumpy boss exponentially as the days passed. That meant increased alone time for Rush do his best work. He convinced himself this was a good thing. It was what he'd been asking for all year.

Rush's shoulders were sore, his neck was stiff, he hadn't moved from his console in hours, yet he was barely two lines down an equation. He had everything he needed to figure this out, but his mind performed ceaseless wanderings into his past, pestering him with emotion and regret and he really did not need this right now.

Rush slammed his pencil into the buttons and in a flurry of frustration swiped all his notes to the floor. He collapsed against Destiny, grabbing fistfuls of hair.

"I know I've done horrible things," he whimpered. "But don't do this now. Not now. I need to think. Gloria, I can't function like this.

Rush needed to cry; he felt it in his bones. But though he forced and demanded his body to relieve him at least temporarily of guilt, his eyes stayed dry. His emotions were separated from him as if by glass. He could see them, understand them, and know what he should be feeling, but he couldn't fulfill them.

A long, mindless walk was in order. So he pushed off the console with such vigor that it propelled him on a mission to nowhere. He walked with purpose, every stride filled with the confidence that Rush had absolutely no idea where he was going. Every collision of his shoe against the floor screamed: get the hell out of my way, you're in my space! Rush had been doing this so long that it had become second nature. He felt like his insides were dying. Like the wreath.

Rush wasn't expecting anyone to be up at this hour, so he stopped breathlessly when he heard someone sobbing. Suddenly he was out of breath with the effort of not being heard. As quiet as a mouse he got close enough to the door to see a woman on her knees before the wreath, as if praying to the almighty. Her slightly tilted head reminded him of paintings of virgins and holy things he had been forced to study in his youth.

The woman, whose name Rush had never bothered to learn, was nearing the end of her release. She was sniffling and trembling with aftershocks, exhaustion the only thing keeping her from continuing.

It'll cheer everyone up, Scott had said. A little Christmas spirit wouldn't hurt anyone, he had said.

That had been Christmas Eve. The woman was probably European and, like Rush, had been drawn to the mess hall by memories of twinkling nights. Colonel Young and the rest of his American soldiers had insisted in their typical quiet, dominant way that the crew would celebrate the day. The rest had fallen wordlessly into line, happy to have any reprieve at this point.

The following day Rush went out of his way to make sure he wouldn't run into anyone. He returned to his quarters early so that the morning shift would miss him on their way to the festivities. Then, when he returned to work, he disappeared between ten and eleven; that was when Colonel Young usually checked in on him.

At half past eleven he got the radio call while working from an isolated console in a rarely traveled section of Destiny.

"Rush, where the hell are you?"

Rush had to answer, or the Colonel would send out search parties. "I'm rather busy, Colonel, and I'd appreciate it if I had no interruptions."

"You're not in the control room and you're not in your quarters. Where the hell are you?"

"Not plotting sabotage, if that's what you're thinking?"

"That's exactly…what I'm thinking Rush so you better get your stubborn ass down to the mess. Right now." The Colonel paused, but kept his finger on the button. Through the static Rush heard other people talking loudly and laughing in the background. He imagined Young in the corridor outside the mess, leaning heavily on a bulkhead, trying not to alert the others that he was trying to get the Grinch to join the party. Then Young continued in what Rush could only define as disappointment. "You're the only one not here."

"And you would all greatly benefit if it stayed that way."

"Fine, have it your way." Then silence

It took Rush a couple minutes to process how easy that had been. It was perhaps no surprise that the rugged, do-no-wrong Colonel sounded reluctant to be celebrating Christmas. It was almost as if he wanted a kindred spirit to share in his displeasure, so that he wouldn't suffer alone. Rush almost took pity on the man, and then reminded himself of how much they were supposed to hate each other.

Colonel Young was Rush's first and last call the entire day. He had an inkling that Young had told Eli and the rest of the Who's not to bother the mean old Grinch while he plotted this most merry day away. Rush was grateful.

Sometimes Rush had a sudden urge to join his colleagues. Those were painful moments punctuated by apathy, but when they subsided he felt more reassured that he hadn't let his heart get the best of him. A few times he heard a noise and turned expectantly, as if wishing for someone to find him and drag him to the party. And he would go kicking and screaming in a tantrum because Nicholas Rush did not do Christmas.

At half past eleven, Rush entered his quarters like a stranger. He looked around, and deciding he was safe, sat on his bed. From under it he pulled a small box, and opening it, emerged with a frail picture between his fingertips.

"Hello, my dear. I know it's been a long time. I know you would have never complained. You always waited for me. It's little question that you indulged my worst habits. The people here certainly never do, not that I expect it of them, but they just don't understand me. I know…how can they with me being the way I am? Even before you died I was like this. But you managed to always ground me. And now I'm so lonely. I'm living my dream and I'm doing it alone. They don't know how important this ship is, what it could mean for all of us. I really wish you were here."

One thing Rush forever lamented about being cut off from Earth was the scarcity of tissue.

At precisely midnight Rush walked into the mess hall. He tried to imagine the sound of his parent's grandfather clock chiming but found that Destiny's persistent humming drowned it away.

Empty cups ran all across the tables with sporadic little puddles of Brody's special brew in between and Rush cringed at the waste. It still smelled like communal breath and alcohol, though the party had died hours ago. Rush walked up to the wreath, which was still hanging on its lonesome metal altar, its pines browning at tips. He was afraid that if he touched it the whole thing would collapse into a heap on the floor.

Rush slid onto the nearest bench and flipped open his notepad. He chose an early page marked with equations he'd long solved and committed to memory and ripped it out. He didn't understand why but he started folding. His masculine fingers pressed the creases methodically, symmetrically. The numbers smeared off on his skin and he rubbed harder, glad to erase any trace that the paper ever belonged to him.

Then he approached the wreath again and gingerly placed his little crane along the inside circle. It wasn't very festive, but it was the only origami he had ever learned. A girl in high school showed him how during group work. Her giggle rang clean through Rush's ears as he remembered his first crane being lopsided. She had said, don't worry it's still good. Then she smiled and he had felt satisfied.

"I like it," came a gruff male voice

Rush started and swiveled to face Colonel Young. The man had his hands tucked casually in his pockets and his head slightly tilted back considering the very not so merry wreath. "Looks better now. I always thought that area was missing something."

Young walked in fully confident that he had come upon Rush quite accidentally. The scruffy scientist, on the other hand, peered at him by the corner of his eye with open awareness. But then he had been certain the Colonel would find him here, so why did he come if he wanted to be alone?

"A lot of people were asking for you tonight, you know."

"Is that so," Rush retorted cynically. Young was blocking the exit and Rush tried not to show his unease.

"What, you think I'd lie about that? You think I'm full of shit?"

Rush only bobbed his head in agreement and Young mimicked him, and then broke out into flighty chuckles. "Yeah…no one gave a rat's ass that you didn't show up. In fact I think most people were happy about it."

Rush folded his arms. "Wow. You sure know how to make a guy feel popular."

"You can't blame them, Rush. You're a snarky, arrogant bastard at the best of times. Anyways, I can't fool you; I only came here to give you this." Young pulled two new notepads from his pocket. They were quartered printer paper clipped in a pile. "I had some spare in my pack when we left Icarus. I noticed you were almost out. Figured you're the one who needs them the most around here."

Rush waited for Young to deposit the gift on the table before touching it. No rude remarks or unnecessary sarcasm came to mind, only, "Well thank you, Colonel. I'm sure to make good use of them. How…how were the festivities?"

"Boring as hell. And to be honest, painful. The last Christmas I spent was with my wife. Ex wife now."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You already knew. It spread along the grapevine like a spark in gasoline."

"Indeed, but I am truly sorry."

They fell silent then, and like always it was strained and awkward. Neither of them wanted to take the first step towards a more intimate conversation. Perhaps they feared revealing too much of themselves that would later be used against them, but it was more probable to Rush that Young wanted to reach out to him and the man just didn't know how.

When Young finally gave up his courage and turned away Rush said, "I finished my chess set. We should play a round or two when you're not busy."

"You mean when you're not busy."

Rush smiled gently. "Aye."

"It's a date." The Colonel walked away, trying to restrain the spring in his step. Right before he veered the corner he spoke in a murmur so small that Rush wasn't sure he heard right. "And some say, his heart grew three sizes that day."

~Fin

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. Please R&R 3


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